Step One...

To fully explain exactly the downturn my life has taken in the past 3 weeks would take me longer than i have at this internet cafe. And indeed, seeing that there are a number of you I owe personal apology emails to, I'll try and make this kind of a catch all so that I can point you here for a longer explanation.

Basically:

1. I'm out of work.
2. I'm broke, having not been paid my severance cheque
3. I'm out of my flat having not paid rent for reasons of not being paid from work.
4. I can't make phone calls or texts cos my bills not been paid.
5. I can't find work with no phone and no internet.

Now that aside, my good friend Nav kindly offered me a room in his luxurious flat courtesy of James's upgrading of his relationship from "Living with her (but she may come to her senses and kick me out anyday so don't fucking rent out my room)" to "Think this is it, and anyway I have keys now so I'd just crash on the couch if we did have an argument - give steve my room". All in all means 2 good things. Well 3 good things if you count the fact that I'm living rent free - YAY!

So, after 2 weeks of this how has my life gotten so crazy? Surely, living with my best friend should have calmed the stormy waters and gotten my life on track. Well, I hope you won't mind me saying that its a combination of things. Some my own fault, some... the blame belongs to others.

Maybe pictures would help! Last night i came home from the fucking long walk from Kings Cross to Archway in order to save myself some money at teh cheap assed Russian internet cafe. When I get home i see the lights in my room go off, and some rustling on the bed.

This is what I want to see:



This is what I do see:




Yes folks, the fucker opened fire to welcome me home.

So for the record. Living with Nav is wonderful. Living with Gee a Joy. Living with Alex and baki is cool and slightly better than expected. Living with Kev, even temporarily, is a fucking NIGHTMARE!

shit plus fan equals

I'm AWOL.
I'll be back.
Emails and phone calls will be had to apologise as soon as my phone is reconnected.

If you've emailed me, i ain't read it.
If you've called and left a message, i aint heard it.
I can though recieve text. Can't reply though!

Steve

P.S. No fucking idea why the others only have titles. I wrote some good stuff!!!

Toasties (i think i'm still drunk)

Honda Suzuki

Football Focus

The Sun is up

Double Sixes...

Walkabout >  Kebab >  Back to Theirs > Walk of Shame

Loved it!

300

ooooh Baby.

Been waiting for this for years, and the trailer looks... beyond words.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE TRAILER

"Today the 1000 Nations of the Persian Empire attack your island. Our Arrows will blot out the sun"

"Then we shall fight in the shade"

FUCK YEAH!

Sons of Bitches!!

Yes, that’s plural!

These two motherless gits (yes, i see the contradiction between motherless sons - thank you) have reduced my viewing ability! I strived and begged to get this seat, I even fired that intern Fred over a "copyright infringement". I've never had to bullshit to a tribunal so much in my life, but MY GOD was this seat worth it.

I had the perfect view. I was 2 stories up, just enough to have a great view of all the people below, just enough for people to clearly see my smiling face and wave back, just enough for people in all the other offices to look down and notice me. This desk was a hive of activity, and I was it's Queen.

[Hmmm, maybe that should be King, but Queen stayed with the hive analogy]

Anyway, i came back from a looooonnnng lunch (3 dbl vodka + red bulls), to find some form of fuzzy opaque shit covering my window. So it lets in light but nothing  else. I mean LIGHT?!?!? who the fuck wants it, i have a light for that!! Just not at home thanks to Kev and the lamps...

Bah, now i have to do work...

And i was so close to getting that number of the hottie in the building next to mine. I had honed my window flirting down to an art form. Seriously books would be written about me, and now , nothing!
On the plus side, I’ve broken my attempted 2 weeks silence and am enraged enough to post on the blog. I've missed you all...

Upheval

This is my last post from my house in Angel.

I'm honestly gutted to be leaving, as I've had many good memories of this house. For all it's faults, i honestly felt very comfortable here. It was a great place to retreat to, and I'm not sure I'm quite ready to rejoin a shared flat. I know I've been shit about showing people around this flat, or inviting them to dinner, or, well, anything overly social. This place was my Fortress of Solitude.

• I levelled 4 charactes to 60 here.
• I had sex with the last woman I loved here.
• I smiled at the only woman who's made clumsy look graceful.
• I fought my brother.
• I told my Dad I loved him.
• I flooded the bathroom.
• I flooded the kitchen.
• I broke my toe.
• I felt real happiness.
• I fucked a cat (not literally - think about it).
• I broke a bed.
• I read a book.
• I broke a lamp.
• I came over my head.
• I was overjoyed to hear that both my friends think they're with the person they'll spend their lives with.

And yet, I'm filled with the contrasting feeling of looking forward to living with Nav again, even if just for a short time. Gee will be back soon and there's something amazingly natural about living with the two of them.

I'll be without an internet connection so posts will either be more sporadic or from work.

Minor Changes

Who says I don't listen to feedback???

It turns out that my "readership" is roughly split in half on a certain number of topics. 50% of you like the fact that the blog includes some funny comments and posts, and like the fact that there is *usually* one post a day to at least pass the time at work. The other 50% of you would rather I stuck to the subject matter at hand, even if it meant less posts.

I'm a big believer in quality over quantity, even if it isn't really obvious by my writings; but I do think that I should write about my life to give all readers, especially those who have not been with us for too long, a better understanding of me and where I'm coming from.

The Dilema

How do I keep the funny comments, pictures, posts for 50% of people, but limit the amount of redundant posts/space take up on the front page for those that don't want to see it?

The Solution

The Show / Hide button I use for posts considered NOT WORK SAFE.
From now on, long posts, non relavent posts, images, t-shirts, funnies, pictures, nonsence, rants etc, will all require a click to be seen. I'll clearly state the category at the top of the post so you know whether it's safe or not safe for work. I know it's not exactly genius idea, and it does require me to put in a small bit of effort, but, I do hope that this keeps both sides happy. I'm really really happy to hear any feedback, via comments, email or MSN.

Major Site updates

Major thanks to Kev for hand coding most of these changes.

It's been a long process for him as many of these features are *not* avilible on the blogging service I use, so he's literally had to hack out some amazing code, and I appreciate the time he's put in. I do hope it improves your interactivity with the site, especially those of you who read it at work, or who are more selective about what you come here to read and comment on.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking my geekyness to the next level, I've made some rather sweeping changes to how the blog works in the past 6 weeks. Some are things that people have been screaming about for quite some time, so I'm hoping that these changes should push us through that magic 100 unique views a day / minimum 10 posts per topic barrier.

1. Formatting on your comments.

Comments can now have HTML added to them to make them easier to read.
I realise that this may involve coding for some of you (sorry), and I'm trying deperately hard to come up with a WYSISWG editor, but it looks like I'll have to get kev to hand code it, so it'll take a while.
basically, BOLD and UNDERLINE now work really well to make your points that much clearer.

2. RSS / XML feeds

These are now back working, and should work with Macs and the new versions of Windows Vista / Live software. I have about 25 people who only view the site this way, and while that's not a huge number, they do represent 25 page views for every post. Big thanks to CarolAnn for doing the testing on her Mac.

3. Better Layout Loading

I doubt you'll notice it, but the amount of code generated has roughly halfed, so the whole page should load quicker. I've also cut back on quite a few design features, so that I can integrate more information on the right hand pane. I'm definately up for any suggestion you might have.

4. Flickr

Thats right, I have added some flickr integration to the blog. So anyone that's got a photo of themselves, please please send it to me and we can all see each other. I'd really like a small sense of community here, and I think that would really help. Ok, i'm lying, i'm after naked pics...

5. NOW WORK SAFE!!!!

This, my friends, is the one you've been waiting on.

All non work safe comments are now placed inside a hidden div, and you HAVE to click on them to be able to view them. I'm so so glad of this, and currently it's working in IE6 and Firefox browsers. Safari for the Mac has a small issue with some images being visible until the whole page loads, but I've had to ask Kev to re-look at the code, as it's not a simple cut and paste job.

I'm so very happy with this one, as I know that a number of you can't look at the site at work for fear of seeing something that you shouldn't. Hopefully, thats a thing of the past.

And now...

I need help. Play around with these changes. Tell me via email or comments if any of them are useful. Tell me if there is anything you'd like to see added. I've been asked for Polls, PodCasts, BlogLinks, better search option, better archiving, VideoCasts, spellchecks, filters and more. Some of them are not what I want to do with the site, some really really are. But I'd really appreciate some feedback.

thanks,

Steve

Celtic 2 - 0 Rangers

* posted form PDA in pub *

Old Firm

I'm on the 8.15am plane from Heathrow up to Glasgow to see the first Old Firm game of the season.
For those of you who haven't worked out which team I'm supporting, I'm hoping this might be that oh-so-less-than-subtle hint that you've all come to know and love me for:

Miss Celtic

Miss Rangers

See, people DO listen to me...

After my suggestion yesterday, that the FONZ would be a great pirate, and maybe dare we say it, better than the HOFF; it transpires that the good people of The New Wimbeldon Theatre have invited Henry Winkler (the Fonz) to play Captain Hook in this year's Panto.

And here is the kicker. He's replacing David Hasselhoff who had to pull out a few months ago.

What a way to celebrate "Talk Like A Pirate Day"

Yaaaaarrrrr.

Oh, here's the BBC link for those of you who are really bored at work